git log of remote repositories.

Hello,

I have a local branch that is a tracking a remote branch. I want to see what are the modifications upstream, _before_ I pull. I tried 'git log origin' but that's only the point from where I pulled last.

Is there a way to do that?

I see a --remote option in recent git versions, does it have something to do with I want to achieve?

Thank you,

  -- aghiles

Aghiles <aghilesk@gmail.com> wrote:

git fetch
git log ..origin
 

On Tue, 13 Apr 2010, Shawn O. Pearce wrote:

Or the more portable and concise, since 1.7.0:

git log ..@{u}

On 2010-04-13, Aghiles <aghilesk@gmail.com> wrote:

AFAIK no, the operations have to be local.

In order to see if there are any new changes to be pulled you could do this: git fetch --dry-run

Greetings, Jojo

On Wed, Apr 14, 2010, Johannes Gilger  wrote:

It seems to me like a major restriction! Especially that I am tracking a remote branch ... No possibilities to do a diff or a log without fetching? Very sad. :(

  -- aghiles

On 4/14/10 9:08 PM, Aghiles wrote:

If you are interested in the actual commits (say, you want to merge them), you need to fetch them anyway. And if you just want to look at the history, most repos provide a web interface which you can use.

tom

On 14/04/10 15:08, Aghiles wrote:

Major restriction? Have you understood how git works, internally? The first thing you'd have to do is to get the data (i.e. your version or their version) on one of the sides then do the diff there. Now, that either means you have to upload your non-matching objects or they have to upload their non-matching objects. Next up, you might not even have the authority (or technical possibility) to put data on that server (think http), so obviously the diff will have to be done at your side.

So, what will be transmitted? Data the server already has but you don't. git determines this data and then packs it into an efficient format and sends it to you. Which is what? A diff of your version vs. theirs. Except we don't transmit plain diffs but pack them up nicely so the data is smaller and (because you now effectively fetched it) can be reused any time after that initial diff.

If you're worried you might be downloading GBs of data in the process you can always interrupt a running fetch.

Now, one might think of some very limited form of log. Like "git remote-log master..master@origin" (syntax made up). This would be something which could only be used with smart protocols and would display a log (which you couldn't trust because you can't verify the integrity and still has not much metadata). And it would be a heap of new functionality to implement for something that doesn't fit into the workflow of a git user. For the user it would probably take the same amount of time as simply fetching everything new in most cases.

Or you can use SVN and have real online-diffs with real speed ;)

Greetings, Jojo

Hello Johannes,

On Wed, Apr 14, 2010, Johannes Gilger wrote:

I don't need to understand how gits works _internally_ to know what is a restriction to _me_. ;)

Having a sneak peek on what's going upstream seems like a natural thing to do, no ?

For example, I want to write a script to say to the user what are files that could be potentially in conflict from upstream. As I understand it now, I have to fetch and then check. No biggie but I am must say I am surprised.

Understood.

Understood.

In my case, just a list of modified files would be fine actually. Maybe this is something I can do already ?

Thanks for the insight.

  -- aghiles

Heya,

On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 22:05, Aghiles <aghilesk@gmail.com> wrote:

This can be done as said before, by fetching (which does not touch your working copy, it only adds some objects to your store). Can you explain what your hesitation to doing the fetch is? Are the objects stored on the server (potentially) very large?

On Wed, Apr 14, 2010, Sverre Rabbelier wrote:

Yes, size can be an issue. Additionally, git fetch will probably update some references, like FETCH_HEAD, no ? I might want these untouched, if possible.

  -- aghiles

Heya,

On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 22:18, Aghiles <aghilesk@gmail.com> wrote:

I don't think it's a good idea to rely on FETCH_HEAD; if it contains anything you care about you should make a branch or tag for it. Other than FETCH_HEAD 'git fetch' will only update refs in the 'refs/remotes/<remote>/' namespace.

On 14/04/10 16:18, Aghiles wrote:

Besides the space-problem: If you worry about losing already-fetched history (because the guy upstream forgot to take his meds and has deleted all the history and your remote is configured to accept non-ff refs) you still have the reflog to get back.

Greetings, Jojo